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Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton Quotes

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Famous Thomas Merton Quotes

“I believe we are going to have to prepare ourselves for the difficult and patient task of outgrowing rigid and intransigent nationalism, and work slowly towards a world federation of peaceful nations. How will this be possible? Don't ask me. I don't know. But unless we develop a moral, spiritual, and political wisdom that is proportionate to our technological skill, our skill may end us.”

KnowsWorldBelieveMayEndsWisdomSpiritualPoliticalAsksBeliefI BelieveNationsPeaceDifficultMoralSkillsTasksPatientPeacefulPreparationAsk MeNationalismTechnologicalFederationOutgrowingPolitical Wisdom
Book:Witness to Freedom: The Letters of Thomas Merton in Times of Crisis
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“God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of him. A word will never be able to comprehend the voice that utters it. But if I am true to the concept that God utters in me, if I am true to the thought of Him that I was meant to embody, I shall be full of his actuality and find him everywhere in myself, and find myself nowhere.”

IfsAbleSpiritualityVoiceConceptsEmptinessContainingActuality
Book:New Seeds of Contemplation
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“To those who have no personal experience of this revolutionary aspect of Christian truth, but who see only the outer crust of dead, human conservatism that tends to form around the Church the way barnacles gather on the hull of a ship, all this talk about dynamism sounds foolish.”

WayHumansChristianFormSoundChurchAspectFoolishShipsRevolutionaryClassicConservatismPersonal ExperiencesDynamismHullBarnaclesChristian Truth
Book:New Seeds of Contemplation
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“By my monastic life and vows I am saying no to all the concentration camps, the aerial bombardments, the staged political trials, the judicial murders, the racial injustices, the economic tyrannies, and the whole socioeconomic apparatus which seems geared for nothing but global destruction in spite of all its fair words in favor of peace.”

WholeSeemsPoliticalEconomicFairsDestructionMurderInjusticeFavorsTrialsTyrannySpiteConcentrationCampsVowSaying NoJudicialConcentration CampMonastic Life
Book:Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation
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“Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, and fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source.”

FactsSpiritualWonderAliveAwarenessSourceGratitudeActiveInvisibleRealizationAwakeContemplationAweSpontaneousVividTranscendentSacrednessGratitude For LifeSacredness Of Life
Book:New Seeds of Contemplation
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“The deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear Brothers [and Sisters], we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.”

LevelsImagineBrotherCommunicationSpeechConceptsOriginalsUnityDearImagine ThatCommunionBrothers And SistersDear Brother
Book:The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters
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“To be risen with Christ means not only that one has a choice and that one may live by a higher law - the law of grace and love - but that one must do so. The first obligation of the Christian is to maintain their freedom from all superstitions, all blind taboos and religious formalities, indeed from all empty forms of legalism.”

FirstsMayMeanChristianFormLawChoicesChristReligiousGraceHigherEmptyAnd LoveBlindObligationLive BySuperstitionsTabooRisenFormalityLegalismHigher LawGrace And Love
Book:He is risen
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“The silence of the forest is my bride and the sweet dark warmth of the whole world is my love, and out of the heart of that dark warmth comes the secret that is heard only in silence, but it is the root of all the secrets that are whispered by all the lovers in their beds all over the world.”

WorldHeartWholeDarkSecretSilenceHeardSweetLoversBedRootsWhole WorldForestsWarmthBrides
Book:Dancing In The Water Of Life Volume 5:1963-1965: Seeking Peace in the Hermitage
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